Senior Project Officer

About health justice partnerships (HJPs)

A quiet revolution is taking place across Australia that is transforming the way some of the most vulnerable in our community access legal services.
In a practitioner-led movement, community lawyers have been moving out of their offices and into the most unlikely of places – hospitals and community health settings – to collaborate with health services and their patients to address unmet, health-harming legal need.
Known as health justice partnerships, these collaborations work by embedding legal help into healthcare services and teams. They have formed in response to a growing body of evidence that shows there are groups of people who are vulnerable to intersecting legal and health problems, but who are unlikely to turn to legal services for solutions.

About this position
We are looking for someone with the skills and attitude to make a real difference in this small team with big ambitions. The Senior Project Officer will work with the Partnerships Director to build the partnering capability of health justice partnerships, for example through facilitation of guidance/guideline development; developing targeted, theory-informed resources to support collaborative practice in health justice partnership; management of networking and learning events for the national health justice partnership practitioner network; and establishing and fostering collaborative working relationships with researchers, practitioners, government and other stakeholders.

Roles and responsibilities
i.  Work closely with HJPs to understand their service model, the nature of their partnerships,    the outcomes they seek to achieve and their effectiveness in achieving those outcomes
ii. Develop, test and disseminate resources to support good partnering practice, including through the translation of research into practice
iii. Project management, including the preparation of reports to project funders
iv. Work with HJP practitioners to implement the evidence of good partnering practice to ensure their effectiveness
v. Build and maintain engagement with Health Justice Australia by HJP practitioners and other stakeholders
vi. Contribute to the development and advocacy of policy and funding solutions, informed by the real-world experience of health justice practitioners and the communities they support
vii. Attend and contribute to networks, events and forums across the health, justice and related sectors and representing Health Justice Australia in networks and events
viii. Other duties as required

Skills, knowledge and experience
i. Tertiary qualifications and minimum experience of 3 years in a related discipline e.g. health, law, social services or social policy
ii. Knowledge of professional practice in the areas of health and human services broadly, for example community legal assistance, primary health care, public health or social services
iii. Demonstrated experience in knowledge translation to inform policy and practice
iv. Skills in developing and implementing processes and materials for sharing lessons learned about tools, processes or models
v. Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
vi. Experience in project management, including developing project plans and bringing a project to fruition within budget and the agreed time frame
vii. High-level communication, stakeholder engagement and relationship management skills, including experience in navigating and negotiating with multiple organisations and professional groups
viii. Experience in navigating and negotiating multi-stakeholder partnerships
ix. Commitment to the values of social justice, improving health and reducing legal need particularly for communities experiencing disadvantage

Organisational relationships

•  Supervised by Partnerships Director
• May supervise volunteers, interns or students